Day 4: Thirsty Souls
When the water in the skin was gone, she put the boy under one of the bushes. Then she went off and sat down about a bowshot away, for she thought, “I cannot watch the boy die.” And as she sat there, she began to sob... The angel of God called to Hagar from heaven and said to her, “What is the matter, Hagar? Do not be afraid; God has heard the boy crying... Lift the boy up and take him by the hand, for I will make him into a great nation.”
Then God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water. So she went and filled the skin with water and gave the boy a drink (Genesis 21:15-19).
There was a well of water close to Hagar all the while though she saw it not. God did not cleave the earth and cause new waters to gush forth, nor was there need. The well was there already, but for all practical purposes it might not have been there, for she could not see it.
The water was spent in her bottle, her child was dying with thirst, and she herself was ready to faint, and yet the cool spring was bubbling up hard by the spot. It was needful that she should see the well, quite as needful as that the well should be there, and therefore the Lord in great compassion led her to see it, or as the text puts it, “God opened her eyes.”
...Our God does very little things as well as very great things when there is need for them... The infinite Lord is at home in doing little things; He counts the stars, but He also numbers the hairs of our heads. Remember that the same God who moulded the orb on which we dwell also fashions every tiny dewdrop, and He who makes the lightning bolt to fly through the midst of heaven wings every butterfly and guides every minnow in the brooklet...
Sometimes very little things become absolutely necessary, for they act as the hinges of history, the pivots upon which the future turns. How frequently the whole course of a man’s career has been affected by a moment s thought. The word of a child has affected the destiny of an empire: the chance expression of a speaker, as men talk of chance, has fired races with a new passion, and changed times and shaken kingdoms.
The Lord worketh gloriously by agents and events small and despised. God, by opening Hagar’s eyes, secured the existence of the Ishmaelitish race, which even to this day remaineth: from the little cometh the great.
There may be persons... who want but very little to enable them to enter into eternal life: they need only that their eyes should be opened. May the Lord grant them that favour. O that He may now bid many a Hagar see His salvation. Why should the thirsty souls wait any longer? Everything is ready: they are on the borders of salvation, but they need that their eyes should be opened.
~ C. H. Spurgeon ~
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